My Week in Yoga: Two Halves

After two quiet weeks, taking life and yoga as gently as this time of year will allow, the first half of this week was more of the same.

Until my mojo came back.

Whoop whoop!

Which meant Thursday through Sunday saw me spend more time on a yoga mat than I did in either of the previous two weeks. And gosh, did it feel GOOD.

Monday:  

15 minutes slow movement before bed. Cat cows, puppy poses, dynamic childs pose: relaxed heart and shoulder openers were on the agenda for some reason. 

Tuesday: 

An unexpectedly busy day followed by a truly magical evening at the ballet (seeing the Nutcracker!) meant today was a no yoga day.

Wednesday: 

I had ambitions to get up early to practice that didn’t even make it past the first snooze on the alarm. Not least of all because I knew I had a long long day ahead of me. It was a fun day for sure (oh Christmas silly season!) but one without any time for yoga, or at least in a way that wouldn’t have me crash and burn a few hours later.

Thursday: 

Today was a total yoga treat. Someone very special to me is doing their yoga teacher training and I got to go to one of her assessment classes today. 75min of hatha, so not my usual yoga bag, but after being off my game these last few weeks, it could not have been more perfect. Slow, thoughtful, deliberate and all with a deep glow of pride as I watched my loved one shine. 

Friday: 

I woke up today beginning to feel like my old self. At last! And it coincided with a less crazy day schedule wise, so I managed to get down to the gym at work. I plugged myself into my new wireless headphones, switched one on of my 60min yoga class playlists and f-l-o-w-e-d. I actually floated through the rest of my day. Fact.

Saturday:

Up early for a different Rocket class as my normal teacher is away. 60min instead of the usual 75, but I felt every minute of it – all in the right ways. My pincha has totally deserted me, which is no surprise given how little strength work I’ve done over the past few weeks. However, the teacher had me pressing from crow to handstand with a pretty light touch assist so that more than made up for it. Like, MORE THAN made up for it. 

I then pottered through a few sequences ahead of teaching my class later that day. 15min. 

Sunday:

An unintentional double yoga day. 45min of self-practice early in the morning, and then I headed off to a 2 hour teachers workshop with MoreYoga (the amazing company that runs the studios I teach at). I wasn’t really sure what it was going to involve, hence the practicing in the morning… which seemed like an excellent decision after the first 15min of blissful Kirtan.

And then the asana hammer dropped!

Wooooooooofffff. We worked. And worked. 

However, it was all to a soundtrack of the teacher talking through yoga philosophy: reminding us to come back to our intention. Bringing us back to the truth that everything we do on the mat is just preparation for how we live our lives off it. 

And if that wont get you through a tough practice, I don’t know what will.

• Self-Practice: 2hrs 15min
• Classes: 4hrs 15min  
• TOTAL: 6hrs 30min